News anchor boycott: Siddaramaiah hits back after BJP’s statement
BJP earlier had issued a statement, reacting to the boycott by INDIA
Updated: Sep 16th, 2023
Replying to Bharatiya Janata Party's president JP Nadda's allegations, Siddaramaiah said that prime minister Narendra Modi has boycotted every journalist in the country by not addressing a single press conference in the last 10 years.
Moreover, he also listed journalists, who were arrested for 'reporting the truth' and 'killed for speaking the truth'.
Siddaramaiah pointed out that India's rank has been constantly falling in the Press Freedom Index. In 2015, it was 136, which consecutively went down in 2019, 2022, and 2023, to 140, 150, and 161, respectively.
On Sept 14, BJP’s statement deemed INDIA’s decision to boycott the media as ‘highly repressive, dictatorial’, and of ‘negative mindset’. The statement also compared the decision to the times of ‘emergency era’.
Earlier, JP Nadda had said that the INDIA bloc is bullying the media with their boycott, and said, “The Emergency era mindset is alive among these parties. I. N. D. I Alliance should stop their antics immediately. They should instead focus on constructive work and serving people. Else, the path to obscurity will get even clearer.”
Taking a swipe at the Congress, Nadda said, “The history of Congress has many instances of bullying the media and silencing those with differing views.
“Pandit Nehru curtailed free speech and arrested those who criticised him. Indira (Gandhi) Ji remains the ‘Gold Medal’ winner of how to do it- called for committed judiciary, committed bureaucracy and imposed the horrific Emergency.
“Rajiv (Gandhi) Ji tried to bring the media under state control but failed miserably. Sonia (Gandhi ) Ji-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) was banning social media handles simply because the Congress did not like their views,” he said.
Notably, the statement of the BJP chief comes in the wake of the Congress-led government in Karnataka filing an FIR against a television news channel anchor, Sudhir Chaudhary for allegedly promoting enmity between groups in his show.
The 14 news anchor boycott from INDIA
In a note, the media group of INDIA said: “Pursuant to the decision taken by the INDIA coordination committee in its meeting on Sept 13, the INDIA parties will not send their representatives on the shows and events of anchors: Aditi Tyagi, Aman Chopra, Amish Devgan, Anand Narsimhan, Arnab Goswami, Ashok Shrivastav, Chitra Tripathi, Gaurav Sawant, Navika Kumar, Prachi Parashar, Rubika Liaquat, Shiv Aroor, Sudhir Chaudhary and Sushant Sinha.”
(With inputs from IANS)
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